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Schools in the News

Walkersville, Catoctin teach "green lessons"

New environmental-education boat a floating classroom

22 Area High School Students Participate In Field Ecology Governor's School at DSLCC

Going green?  Call the Tree Squad

Brookside Gardens' annual butterfly camp connects children with nature

Tire recycling effort gets PENNCREST kids out of class

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Maryland Gazette
August 21, 2008
Walkersville, Catoctin teach "green lessons'

High school classes focus on students' roles in helping Frederick County's regional environment

Teachers at northern Frederick County's two public high schools are hoping to help students this year wade through dizzying global conversation on the environment.

They do it, in part, by getting students to open their eyes to the world around them, right here in Frederick County.
At Catoctin High School, a grouping of native plants in an "ozone garden" will for the first time this year show students the effects of air pollution. The garden, planted about 18 months ago next to the bus lane, will change under the effect of bus exhaust.

"You see these big yellow spots on the leaves," said April Wells, 44, Catoctin High's AP environmental science teacher for 10 years. Wells also leads a program unique to the school, called the Environmental Academy, advises the Save Our Mother Earth [SOME] Club, and coaches the Envirothon team.

She also drives a Toyota Prius – a hybrid vehicle – and happily shows it to her students. Rising fuel prices turned into a teachable moment for Wells' students last year, as they studied long-term data on oil prices, availability and consumption.

"There's been a lot of things going on in the last few years. Now it's getting to be more about what things cost, how much it costs to save energy versus doing it to help the environment," Wells said. "We definitely talk about that."

Wells, along with agriculture instructors Bob Beavan and Diane Ogg at Catoctin High, runs hands-on projects related to environmental science. A larger group at Walkersville High School tries a similar approach. In the classroom and outside, the mostly science or agriculture teachers who collaborate informally on their efforts show students that they can make a difference.

"These are their formative years," said Tony Williams, 28, an environmental science teacher at Walkersville High. "Hopefully what they learn now will be something that will be part of their [lives] for the rest of their lives."

Williams, entering his second year at the school, plans to draw on his summer work as a science consultant and instruct his students on testing the school's water supply and air quality. His students should be motivated – they'll certainly remember the month last school year when they had to use hand-washing stations instead of bathroom sinks because of a manure spill from a local cattle farm.

"A lot of our students still come from farming families," Williams said.

At Walkersville High, Williams, Barry Burch, 45, the transition education coordinator, Sue Faibisch, 38, AP environmental science teacher, Environmental Club advisor and, with Burch, co-advisor of the Envirothon team, and science teachers Scott McIntosh and Amber McCauley, 26, lead green efforts.

"Making it hit home" is part of making environmental awareness appealing to students, Faibisch said last week.

Faibisch has taken the lead in coordinating recycling efforts at Walkersville High. Participating teachers collect recyclables – paper and plastic – in their classrooms. Students in the Environmental Club compile the goods, and Faibisch then delivers the load to the county's Mount Pleasant drop-off point in her truck.

This year, the school hopes to ramp up its recycling efforts and keep track of how much students recycle. Walkersville High also has two student-made composting bins, plans for a fitness trail along the tree line surrounding the school and a proposal for an outdoor classroom in the works.

Such initiatives have helped lead the Maryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education to recognize the two northern Frederick County high schools as Maryland Green Schools. The statewide program is "a holistic, integrated approach to authentic learning that incorporates local environmental issue investigation and professional development with environmental best management practices and community stewardship," according to the association's Web site.

Two other Frederick County schools are Maryland Green Schools: Thurmont Middle School and Walkersville Elementary School.

Students face

'An Inconvenient Truth'

Both Wells and Faibisch use "An Inconvenient Truth," the 2006 documentary on Al Gore's campaign to raise the alarm about global warming, as a teaching tool in AP Environmental Science classes.

The lesson cannot end when the screen goes dark, Wells said – students would be jarred out of believing that small, local projects, such as the short nature trail that Catoctin High students created in 2000 through a stand of trees on campus, have any effect on the world.

"The first time I showed it, they were almost overwhelmed that there was not anything they could do, that it was such a big issue," Wells said. In her class, a discussion that takes in the broader history of the environmental movement soon follows the film, Wells said, with the aim of lessening its impact.

"If they just see all the bad, what good is that?" Faibisch said. "But when we give them options, "Here's what we can do as a community, what we can do as individuals,' then it empowers them, and that's where your hope comes. That's why I teach."

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Virginian-Pilot
September 18, 2008
New environmental-education boat a floating classroom

The sixth-graders from Plaza Middle School did not "oooh" or "ahhh" when they saw the new $300,000 environmental-education boat that was taking them out Wednesday on the Lynnhaven River.

Instead, they saved their amazement for a sea cucumber.

"Whoa, look at that!" Raekwon Speller shouted at the sight of the slimy little creature, brought aboard the boat in a fishing net. "Do people eat that?"

Such youthful excitement can be excused, especially from a student such as Raekwon, enjoying the first science voyage of his life.

But officials with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, owners of the new vessel, seemed just as enthused by their shiny, 50-foot cruiser - the Bea Hayman Clark, complete with energy-efficient engines that can use biodiesel.

"It's about as green as we can get and still have it run," said the Clark's captain, Jimmy Sollner.

Expect to see the Bea Hayman Clark on local waters more often. It will be hard to miss - long, clean, white and with a crush of kids in oversize life jackets staring intently into the depths below.

The Clark is replacing the Baywatcher, a 25-year-old stalwart being moved to Richmond to serve the same purpose there: providing students a firsthand taste - and smell and touch - of the Chesapeake.

Students across Virginia are supposed to engage in a "meaningful watershed experience" before they graduate. The requirement is part of the Chesapeake Bay Agreement, signed in 2000 by mid-Atlantic leaders to increase environmental awareness in science curriculums.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation helps make that happen, partly with public dollars. Just last year, the group took 2,500 students onto the Bay.

Kat Coughlin, who teaches science at Plaza Middle School in Virginia Beach, said her students will be learning about the Bay this year. She received training from the foundation and signed up her class for the expedition.

"If we didn't use oil," asked one student, Jacob Magill, "would the water be blue instead of green?"

"Ooo," said Yancy Powell, an environmental educator, "good question.

"OK, then. Why do you guys think the water is green?"

Silence reigned.

"Well," he replied, "it's because there's too much algae in the water. And that's one of the biggest problems facing the Bay - too much algae."

The Bea Hayman Clark was built in Maryland, the gift of two Pennsylvania doctors, Fred and Karen Clark. They named the vessel after Fred Clark's late mother, who grew up on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

When they left the docks Wednesday, Pruthviraj Gadhavi was quiet and anxious. This was his first trip, he said, and he did not know what to expect.

An hour later, though, Pruthviraj was laughing and spilling river water all over his shorts as he and some classmates filled buckets for marine life soon to be pulled from the Lynnhaven.

Up came a load of blue crabs, white shrimp, small fish, even a tiny squid. Then the sea cucumber emerged. And the "ooohs" and "ahhhs" began.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com

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Rockbridge Weekly
August 18th, 2008
Going green?  Call the Tree Squad

If you want to go green, it's as simple as planting a tree. The idea took root with six Palisades students and has launched into a mission to encourage residents to plant 1,000 trees throughout Upper Bucks communities.

Palisades High School junior Julia Brokaw saw something bigger in the tiny saplings that were dropped off by the Heritage Conservancy. Along with her five classmates, she formed the Gallows Run Watershed Association's Tree Squad.

"People can feel overwhelmed by the idea of going green but if you can give people a tree they can plant, they can know that they're helping the environment,” she said. "Instead of just changing their light bulbs, people can plant a tree and know that it is more long term."

Julia said the idea to plant trees came from Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai.

In 2004, the Kenyan environmentalist and human rights campaigner became the first African woman to win the peace prize for her Green Belt Movement, a campaign to plant tens of millions of trees to slow deforestation in Africa.

"Young, healthy trees take a large amount of carbon dioxide out of the air and convert it into wood and leaves. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and is believed to be responsible for global climate change," she said.

Julia and the other Palisades teens have started handing out the seedlings at community day events throughout Upper Bucks. Their next stop will be at the Springfield Township Community Day on Saturday at the Springtown Rod & Gun Club.

The Tree Squad teens are also looking beyond the 150 native trees donated to the group. The handful of students collected acorns and hickory nuts and planted them in pots donated by local nurseries.

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Maryland Gazette
August 20, 2008
Brookside Gardens' annual butterfly camp connects children with nature

The children at Brookside Gardens' summer butterfly day camp got a surprise visitor Friday, but for them, it was still a familiar sight.

"Cool! A monarch!" yelled a few of the children, quickly identifying the species of the butterfly that had just flown from the garden's grounds into a visitors center classroom.

That many of the 11 children identified the butterfly species while looking up from large hunks of a caterpillar-shaped cake made by program director Lynn Richard, proved a perfect example of the balance between education and fun that the camp provides.

"They have been able to see butterflies in all four stages of the life cycle," said Richard, children's program horticulturist at Brookside, 1800 Glenallan Ave. in Wheaton. "But then they have been outside at the exhibits and playing games in the gardens."

It was the third year Brookside has held the camp, which runs from 10 a.m. to noon each weekday.

On Friday, the last day of the weeklong camp, participants made a decorative stone shaped like a butterfly and examined some of the caterpillars held in enclosed cases in the visitors center. After that they took to the gardens and played an elaborate game of tag in which some children acted as birds and others as butterfly.

When the game became too complicated for Aaron Liss, 7, he decided to sit out and examine some of the nearby flowers on exhibit at Brookside.

"I like seeing the different butterflies. We didn't get to see most of these when we lived in Michigan," said Liss, whose family recently moved to Silver Spring.

Participants also were given their own caterpillars to bring home and were taught how to create a healthy habitat for them.
"This is the best camp I have ever been to," said Kendi Aaron, 7, of Silver Spring. "I can take home a caterpillar and watch as it becomes pretty."

Despite having to add a new pet to the house, Silver Spring resident Randee Exler, the mother of camper Molly Kramer, said the camp worked out for both her and her daughter.

"She loved it. She's showing us all the butterflies in our yard," Exler said. "Plus it gave me an excuse to walk in the gardens for two hours."

Another component of the camp was its coordination with Brookside's annual Wings of Fancy butterfly exhibit, which the children visited every day. The exhibit is held in Brookside's conservatory and on any given day features between 600 and 800 butterflies, with more than 100 exotic species flying amongst the attendees.

Cheryl Beagle, the director of the Wings of Fancy exhibit, said this was only the second year Brookside was able to obtain Asian species of butterflies, which are know for their vibrant colors and designs and are obtained from butterfly farms from across North America and Costa Rica.

"The butterflies are so close to you," Beagle said of the exhibit's best quality. "People are drawn to the more personal experience."

The 12th year of Wings of Fancy began May 3 and will run until Sept. 21. Tickets are $5 for adults and $4 for children.

Butterflies are free to fly anywhere in the exhibit and among the attendees as they walk around the conservatory. Visitors are not allowed to touch the butterflies and before they exit the display, must be checked for butterflies that might have landed on them unknowingly, so none can escape.

Kramer said she was surprised by how interactive the exhibit was.

"I liked seeing all of the butterflies," she said. "Especially when one landed on my headband."

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The Meadville Tribune
September 28, 2008
Tire recycling effort gets PENNCREST kids out of class

CENTERVILLE —
Covered in mud and sweating profusely, 375 students from PENNCREST School District demonstrated their commitment to the environment Wednesday by dragging 9,000 waste tires up the banks of a ravine and loading them into tractor trailers for recycling.

Getting out of school for half of the day was an added bonus.

"It's just a really great way to spend the day,” said Dillon Holder, 15, of Cambridge Springs High School. "I've never volunteered for a community service project before, but knowing what tires do to the environment makes the hard work worthwhile."

It was the third time students joined for the tire reclamation project, but even after four more tractor-trailer loads were hauled out Wednesday, enough remained in the trenches of the headwaters of Oil Creek for one more waste removal session.

Students began several years ago, initiated by Maplewood High School students and developed into an interactive learning experience. Former Maplewood High School senior Nathan Renaudin and his biology teacher, Jason Drake, initiated the community effort with seniors Samantha Taylor, Kevin Sawatsky and Case Kunick.

Drake has kept the project alive with funding provided by the Milken Family Foundation as a way of teaching kids the vital roles they play in society.

"It is important to provide opportunities for young people to give back to their community and to "walk the walk' and not just "talk the talk,'" he said. "These days we hear lots of talk about 'change,' but we are interested in actually implementing change through our understanding of science; we are recognizing a problem and creating solutions."

The "monumental recycling project" has become an integral portion of the environmental science curriculum at Maplewood, Cambridge Springs and Saeger-town high schools because it exemplifies many environmental and health concerns facing our planet and "fits perfectly with our Pennsylvania science and technology and even more so with our Pennsylvania environment and ecology standards."

Drake said there have been three tire reclamation efforts, but the "solid waste issue" has been a topic of discussion for at least five years and has been a catalyst for debate and discussion. Maplewood High School hosted a forum several years ago that featured experts who shed light on the breadth of the waste tire problem, as well as the impact on the surrounding environment.

Tires that aren't properly disposed of pose a variety of health and environmental concerns, said Mariah Kinney, 16, of Maplewood High School.

"Not only can toxins be released into the air if these tires were to catch on fire, but the chemicals could seep into the ground and affect the water supply," Kinney said. "Other dangers from tire dumps are that they are breeding grounds for rodents and mosquitos that can carry and transmit West Nile Virus."

Students in a 50-foot-long chain passed tires from the bottom of the creek bed to students in the back of a tractor trailer who stacked them in a woven pattern. There were four trucks, each with a 1,500-tire capacity.

Mike Shaffer, the director of sales at Liberty Tire Co. in Pittsburgh, said he's been in the tire recycling business for 16 years, but it was the first time he's ever seen "this many kids working so hard and getting down and dirty” in a filthy tire dump.
"It's incredible — absolutely incredible," he said. "I've seen groups of people working together before, but usually there's only a handful of kids in the crowd. It's a really, really great thing that they're doing for the environment here."

Shaffer is coordinating the transportation of the tires to a cryogenic recycling plant in Braddock, where they will be sorted. Not all of the tires collected will be suitable for recycling, he said. About 5 percent of the 140 million tires that Liberty Tire collects each year are used for tire-derived fuel, which, when mixed with coal and wood, burns twice and long and twice as hot as coal, but with less emissions. Some of the tires — the worst of the worst — cannot be recycled or even used for TDF.

"Tires that are beyond our cleaning abilities, are contaminated or are odd sizes such as off-road, airplane or tractor tires, will end up in a monofill, which is a specially designed landfill consisting solely of tires," he said. "They are buried, but are accessible in the future when we develop the capabilities to process them."

Funding by the Milken Family Foundation will be used to pay for processing the tires, Shaffer said. Liberty Tires is providing transportation free of charge.

After three hours, students who participated in the clean-up project were tired, filthy dirty and smelled like the stagnant water trapped inside the tires. As they boarded the buses to return to their schools and then head home, Kinney called it "fun," but said many parents, including her own, would probably opt to burn the clothes in lieu of washing them.

"It was a good time and I got to meet a lot of new people from other schools in our district," she said. "It was like getting out of school for a field trip, only better because we actually did something to help out the environment."

Penni Schaefer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at pschaefer@meadvilletribune.com.

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